Box Score 1 | Box Score 2
CASTLETON, Vt. –  For the second time in a week, sophomore ace pitcher Elizabeth Mitchell (Coventry) sustained a tough-luck, one-run first-game (2-1) loss and for the second time in less than a week, sophomore Jordan Bennett (Plainville, MA) picked up the Warriors – with help from Mitchell –  in Game 2 to help the Warriors salvage a Little East Conference doubleheader split.
 
In the opener, Mitchell (12-9) limited Plymouth State University (14-15, 6-4 LEC) to two hits but the Panthers scored twice (one unearned run) in the fourth inning to snap a 14-game losing streak at the hands of the Warriors (19-13, 9-5 LEC) in a 2-1 victory.  In the second game, Bennett (3-0) won for the third time in three starts by pitching into the sixth inning before Mitchell closed it out and secured the team's sixth shutout of the season by retiring the final five batters in a 2-0 victory.
 
With only a Tuesday doubleheader remaining at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in the LEC regular season, Eastern is in third place, two games behind leader VTSU Castleton (20-9, 11-3 LEC), which was picked for seventh in the LEC pre-season poll. The Spartans swept Eastern at Castleton, VT a week ago.
The No. 1 seed in the final standings will host the six-team double-elimination May 6-9.
 
In the second game, Eastern scored single runs in the fourth and fifth innings to snap a scoreless tie and hand Emily Antrim (0-4) her fourth loss without a win. Senior first baseman Maddy Bowen (Hudson, NH) drove in junior shortstop Kaley Laird (Bristol) from second with her second triple of the year after Laird singled to open the inning and stole second.
 
In the fifth inning, the Warriors added a pad run. Sophomore third baseman Sam Healy (Cranston, RI) opened with a double, moved to third on Bennett's sacrifice bunt and hustled home on junior rightfielder Reagan Lalor's (Danbury) bunt to the right side of the infield.
 
Bennett carried that 2-0 lead into the sixth but was lifted in favor of Mitchell after putting two runners on with one out on a walk and Addison Willett's single. Mitchell got a ground ball for the second out and after Kiera Larson reached on an infield single that loaded the bases, got leadoff hitter Kenzie Bessette on a swinging strikeout to lead the go-ahead run on first.
 
Mitchell earned the save with a 1-2-3 seventh, ending the game with two strikeouts.
 
In the first game, Plymouth struck for both of its runs in the fourth inning on a hit, walk, sacrifice bunt and an infield error. The Warriors got one back in the sixth on Bowen's RBI triple but complete-game winning Allie Cecere (9-4) got an infield pop to strand the tying run and put Eastern down in order in the seventh on a strikeout, and to fly balls to right.
 
Junior centerfield Julia Boya (Coventry), batting ninth in the order, had three of Eastern's ten hits – all on bunts -- in the nightcap, with Laird and Healy each collecting two hits and each scoring a run. Boya singled with one out in the third but ran into a double play, singled to put runners on first and second with one out in the fifth but was left on second base, and singled Lalor to second with none out in the seventh  but was left at third with the bases loaded.
 
Mitchell fanned five, walked one and hit a batter while Cecere fanned four without a walk.